lofshapiroM3 - The Conch

Fill out the following chart based on your personal notes from reading and team discussion.

Name	Quote and page #	Response/analysis
Enzo	"S'right. It's a shell! I seen one like that before. On someone's back wall. A conch he called it. He used to blow it and then his mum would come. It's ever so valuable" pg. 15	Piggy says this quote when he and Ralph first see the shell. His comments set up two aspects of the shell that will come into play later in the novel: the idea of using the shell to call someone and the shell being valuable.
Enzo	"'And another thing. We can't have everybody talking at once. We'll have to have 'Hands up' like at school.' He held the conch before his face and glanced round the mouth. 'Then I'll give him the conch.' 'Conch?' 'That's what this thing is called. I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking." pg. 33	Ralph uses the conch as a symbol of authority with the boys in their second meeting. The conch comes to represent civilization and order in this quote, as Ralph instructs the boys how to use the conch to take proper turns in their meetings.
Enzo	"The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist" pg. 181	Roger's act of savagery destroys the conch and Piggy, the voice of reason, in one fell swoop. As the conch shatters, so do the last remnants of civilization on the island.
Karina	"We can use this to call the others. Have a meeting. They'll come when they hear us--" pg. 16	In this quote Ralph states that the conch will be their method of communicating with each other when it is absolutely necessary. The whole idea of having the conch was to summon all the boys that were alive after the plane crash and to try to establish some kind of order to be able to survive.
Karina	"Then I'll give him the conch." "Conch?" "That's what this shell's called. I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking." pg. 33	The conch was a tool for Ralph; it helped him establish many rules and boundaries, for example the person who would have the conch would be the only one who could be able to speak and express his opinions and no one was allowed to interrupt him. I think that this indicates that the conch was a symbol of civilization and order in the novel.
Karina	"They obbeyed the summons of the conch, partly because Ralph blew it, and he was big enough to be a link with the adult world of authority; and partly because they enjoyed the entertainment of the assemblies." pg. 59	In this passage William Golding is decribing how the littluns obey the summons of the conch because they are too little to know what's going on and they think that Ralph is an adult which means that when he blows it they rapidly obey his orders. The conch really gave Ralph a huge sense of authority throughout the whole novel. It gave him the power to rule all the boys, biguns and littluns.